A federal jury on Monday ruled that Google infringed upon the overall copyright structure of Oracle's Java software platform in the creation of the Android operating system used in smartphones and other mobile devices.

But the jury was unable to reach a decision on a key claim by Google regarding what the company called its fair use of 37 Oracle-owned Java APIs. After the verdict was reached in a San Francisco courtroom at about 11:30 a.m. PT, Google's attorneys asked for a mistrial on that particular question.

It was also determined that Google could have reasonably believed that the Android development team's use of Java was proper at the time it was building out the OS in part by cloning Java APIs and libraries without an official license agreement with Sun Microsystems, the then-owner of Java, which was acquired by Oracle in January 2010.

Judge William Alsup said a decision about the impasse reached by jurors on the fair use question would be rendered later. Discussing penalties for Google's copyright infringement, he warned Oracle's legal team that they would have to show a lot to make a claim on any operating profits Google generates with Android, because at issue are "just nine lines of code" out of hundreds of thousands of lines that make up the operating system.

With the copyright portion of the lawsuit completed, the case now moves to a second phase to discuss Oracle's claim that Google violated its patents by using Java APIs to build Android.

Ahead of the verdict, a potential crisis over a tainted jury was averted but not before jurors were instructed to temporarily suspend their deliberations. One juror reported discussing a part of the case with her husband over the weekend despite an admonition to speak about the case outside of court, but Judge Alsup and attorneys for Google and Oracle agreed that the infraction was minor enough to allow deliberations to continue.

About the Author

Damon Poeter got his start in journalism working for the English-language daily newspaper The Nation in Bangkok, Thailand. He covered everything from local news to sports and entertainment before settling on technology in the mid-2000s. Prior to joining PCMag, Damon worked at CRN and the Gilroy Dispatch. He has also written for the San Francisco Ch... See Full Bio

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